The California housing market heated up a little more in May with resales of houses and condominiums rising by 8.3 percent from resales in April. A total of 42,293 units sold during the month compared to 39,051 in April and 41,790 in May 2012, a 1.2 percent increase.

DataQuick said that the numbers were the strongest for any May since 2006 when 54,099 homes were sold. May sales have ranged from a high of 67,078 in 2005 to a low of 32,223 ten years earlier. Reaching back to 1988, sales for the month have averaged 46,471, 9.0 percent higher than the most recent figure.

Home prices are also increasing rapidly. May was the 15^th consecutive month that the state had seen an increase in median prices on an annual basis and last month's prices were up 25.9 percent from one year earlier, rising from $270,000 in May 2012 to $340,000. The median marked an increase of 4.9 percent from the April $324,000 price. The last time home prices were higher was in April 2008 when the median was $354,000.

Sales of foreclosed properties (REO) as a share of all home sales fell to 11.4 percent in May, down from 13.4 percent in April and 28.5 percent a year earlier. REO sales represented 58.8 percent of home sales in February 2009. Another 17.7 percent of sales were short sales, unchanged from April, and down from 23.7 percent in May 2012.

The typical mortgage payment that home buyers committed themselves to paying last month was $1,227. Adjusted for inflation, this was 56.8 percent below the 2006 peak of the current cycle, though rates have likely decreased affordability since the time of the data collection.